Things i have to say and suggest

Well hi guys…

I have been an AoE-fan since the beginning. Since the demo of the first game, all the way up to AoE III, which ultimately wasn’t my type of game, but still: I love this franchise!

For years now, i have been wondering, why AoE II gets an HD treatment and AoE I doesn’t and now there is the Definitive Edition incoming and my feelings about all this are a mix of excitement, but also worries.

  • The first being the Windows 10 Store.
    As a Windows 10 user, who used the Store (I own the Ultimate Edition of Halo Wars 2!), i can say one thing for sure:
    You won’t draw people to Windows 10!
    Most people i know using Win7 pretty much said one thing: “WELP! So no AoE DE for me then! Well at least i have AoE II HD!”.
    I read it everywhere and that is very sad. The main problem with the store being its exclusivity to Windows 10 AND its lack of features compared to things like Steam!
    The latter being something that leads me to the second concern:

  • Mods and Maps?
    AoE for the past DECADE lived from mods. Look at the AoE II HD Edition and the Steam Workshop!
    There is a devoted Fanbase modding the ■■■■ out of the game with new skins, new scenarios, even custom maps like Tower Defense and whatnot.
    The UWP-plattform/the store just lacks behind this big time, due to its design and that is just bad.
    which leads me to…

  • Map Editor?
    What about the AoE Map Editor? Will that be in the game, like we have known it since 1997(!!!)? I doubt it!

  • Cheats?
    Let’s face it: AoE I had the best cheats EVER. They were SO much fun to mess with. We want them back! Simple as that!

STORMBILLY

  • Map Size
    At LEAST give us the biggest the AoE II HD edition can handle!

  • Population limit
    That is something that really sucks in the original. The pop-cap is just…garbage! I have seen it popping up here more than once already, so…yeah…

  • DX12 and game performance
    You are developing the game for Win10 and we probably will not see it on Steam/Win7 or whatever. DESPITE everyone not liking it, at least give us your shiny new graphics API!
    I don’t want a game that just runs with 10 FPS, when people start building massive armies, beacuse the API overhead and engine are blowing everything up! This gets especially critical with bigger maps and pop-caps (see above)!
    As far as i have seen, the hardware recommendations (https://www.ageofempires.com/buy-now/) list GPUs, that do not support DX12! WHY???

  • Always online, or do we get LAN?
    I seriously wanna play this game with friends over LAN, but i guess i am just delusional, am I?
    NOBODY needs LAN anymore and everyone is online everytime. Especially while being in a train with perfect Internet connection.

Okay seriously: NO ALWAYS ONLINE!

I wanna play games on the road. I live in germany and the mobile Internet HECK, even the wired Internet, really sucks here and we call us a 1st world country…pfff…

Fast Internet in germany is something you just don’t get in way too many places! Especially things like LTE and I don’t want to blow my 2GB LTE i have out of the window, because some game just needs to stay online all the time!

  • The OST.
    You are remastering the OST, which is a nice touch, really, but PE_LEASE remaster everything. I say that, because the AoE II HD only had the expansion OST at first (which got fixed!). If you are going to remaster it, then remaster all of it.

Especially this song here

This one is more of a reminder and maybe give it for download in like FLAC or something. I collect those things and AoE 1+2 always had a place in my heart! I’d even buy it!

  • Finally…
    Seriously Microsoft. You don’t know your audience. You (AGAIN) have shown that! You are messing with those people, who would GLADLY buy the Definitive Edition, but won’t because of such shenanigans!
    Didn’t you learn your lesson, when you lost the console war with one single presentation, talking about DRM (You pretty much gave up on Sony that day!)?
    You are abandoning quite a lot of people, who would give you their money…
    Just a suggestion!

It is not like i am not glad, that there will be a remaster of this wonderful game.
I just fear, that they mess up, due to marketing decisions and the marketing team of MS has some SERIOUS delusions (May i remind you of the XBone launch?)!
You are trying to force people to use things, while pissing off everyone!
YES, EA, Ubisoft and Co also have their own store and launchers, but all those suck!

Especially Ubisoft constantly upsets people, with uPlay not working properly!

I could go on, about WHY this is a bad idea, but it is your property.
Just don’t come to me crying, when the sales are below the numbers you expected!